Monday 14 October 2019

7 ways social justice warriors threaten freedom of speech

So-called "social justice” says that "your liberty and mine are justified only if and to the extent that it serves or benefits the interests of others, especially poor others."

Over the weekend, the Gladstone Club in London hosted the 'Speaking Truth to Social Justice' conference. In his talk ''How Social Justice Silences," speaker Peter Boghossian laid out seven ways in which so-called social justice threatens freedom of speech:
#1 Name-Calling:. "Social-justice advocates use name-calling to silence people". Peter tells us how "Nazi" is a popular goto

#2 Claiming that speech is violence: Claiming speech is violence is a way to cut off dialogue before it even starts.

#3 'Inclusion': @peterboghossian is telling us about the difference between a 'welcoming' environment and an environment that restricts speech under the guise of 'Inclusion.'

#4 Disinvitations: This is the common issue of people receiving invitations to speak, then having them revoked due to complainants about their political positions. The list of disinvitations is long.
@peterboghossian says it's more likely to happen to those on the right.

#5 Bias response teams: This is the practice of encouraging students to report "offensive" speech so that a panel can investigate and punish offenders where necessary.
The new thing now is "being offended by proxy."
 
@peterboghossian talks about the growing trend of being offended on someone else's behalf and making a complaint.
#6 Cancel culture: This is the boycotting, shunning or ignoring of those (usually a public figure) who say things deemed 'offensive.' 
#7 Idea laundering: A term coined by @BretWeinstein. It's the act of ideologically motivated individuals forming a peer-review group to publish faulty ideas in journals to pass them off as 'knowledge'.
To this list I will add two other common phenomena seen recently here in NZ are 
#8 Ridicule: One can easily spot the local social-justice advocate by their reference to free speech advocates as supporters of "freeze peach." This is considered to be humour.
#9 Thug's Veto: Inducing organisers to cancel a speaking event by a threat of violence.
[Summary by Stephen Knight on Twitter]
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